


i long for that feeling to not feel at all

by kanzakimai



Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Force-Sensitive Finn, Gen, M/M, Not Canon Compliant, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Work In Progress
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-07-15
Updated: 2016-07-20
Packaged: 2018-07-24 05:54:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,386
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7496472
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kanzakimai/pseuds/kanzakimai
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Family isn't just about whose blood runs through your veins. It's about who never left your side, stood up for you and believed in you.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> *10 months after the destruction of Starkiller base

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *10 months after Starkiller base

When he left the First Order all he'd been thinking was _Run_.

 

(I can't. I can't. I-

Will not.

I won't.

I. Won't.)

 

He'd been thinking _Run_ from Jakku to Takonada.

 

(And then he'd felt it, a prickling sensation from the back of his neck to the base of his spine.

And then he'd heard it, and as sudden and clear it came it left, the sound of billions of voices crying out in fear.)

 

All he'd thought was _Run_ until he had thought _Rey_.

 

(Because her eyes didn't see past him, through him, as if he wasn't there.

Because her eyes were like Poe's, in them he could see that he could _be_.)

 

Then he lied for a chance to save someone important to him.

Then he watched a good man fall, that heart gone while his own hardened.

Then he stood tall, scared and angry, but resolute against darkness and until he fell into it.

 

(Yet there was light in the darkness, a voice he knew but didn't, with a promise and a threat.

 _They'll destroy you_ , it threatened; _Together_ , it promised.)

 

 

 

Now he sits, in a too damned hard chair, with his hands rubbing at his face. His knuckles still tingling, a cut opened once more and blood trailing slowly down his hand and arm but it's not enough to distract him. Not at all. There's nothing more he wants right now than a good distraction from the twister that has been building up inside him for the past six days and those kriffing stupid words-

He clenches his fists as tight as he can, the cut on his left hand protesting, and sets his hands down on his lap. He turns to the open window a meter away, out into the stars he doesn't recognize at all because how can he when he's so far from _home_ and in the middle of the very same place he once ran away from. _Too much at once_ , Finn thinks and not in elation like he had once upon a time when he'd woken up months ago, once he was able to stand and walk on his own again, once when he'd been asked what he wanted-

He wanted peace. He wanted to not want to run. To not have to.

( _My family, he'd blurted out before he'd even realized it and General Organa's eyes had grown a little dim and Finn thought he'd never forgive himself for it._

 _Once the war is over, he'd been quick to add. Not until I can make sure they are truly safe if they're even alive, went without saying._ )

He looks at the one sitting on the opposite chair to his. Finn knows he hasn't moved a muscle, still haphazardly sitting on the chair from when Finn dropped them into it. Finn can't bring himself to care, not about how his neck must be cramping up, or the split lip or the eye swollen shut he gave him. Nor for the way his face, already scarred, is red and swollen from crying. Wailing.

Finn can't bring himself to care about the state of Kylo Ren.

If anything he'd like another go at the man, if he'd only actually punch back that is.

There's something particularly depressing about beating the hell out of someone when they don't seem all there when it's happening.

As it is, there's something seriously depressing about their situation period, but the man seems bent on making it worse than it already is and frankly he has had enough. Someone has to push them forward and if it's not gonna be him then Finn will have to do it.

"So," Finn speaks up, first one to break the silence in over an hour, and he won't admit even under threat of death that his voice cracked, "I've gone from a Stormtrooper nobody, to a fleeing but free nobody, to a Captain in the Resistance, to _the other_ grandson of Darth Vader."

A beat of silence.

Finn almost sighs before the other man moves, turns his head Finn's way.

"You could write a novel and make billions through the holonet," Kylo Ren speaks up and Finn takes a small comfort in the fact that the man sounds far worse than Finn at the moment.

Finn snorts. "Really? That's what your going with?"

Kylo winces. Finn wonders if it's because the idiot tried to shrug. Seems pretty stupid to try after being thrown against a bookcase to the point of breaking it.

"What else can I do or say?" Kylo asks, closing his good eye and sighing.

Finn glares at him. "I don't know, this is all new to me. I've never had it in the first place as you well damn know. I don't know what it all means but I know I'm not going to be the type to throw it all away like it's nothing. We're _family_ , you said it yourself," Finn points out.

Kylo shakes his head slightly. "Blood relatives, yes, but not _family_. Don't force yourself to call it what it's not."

Finn opens his mouth to argue but Kylo holds a hand up. He opens his good eye and looks at Finn, eye clear but unreadable.

"Who do you think of when I say the word 'home'? What about 'comfort'? Or 'loyalty'? 'Trust'? Let me put it this way. If you were to be abandoned in a desolate planet or moon, and the only thing you could take was a holopic no bigger than your hand, who would you want to see in it to never forget their face or faces?" Kylo asks.

Kylo already knows the answer to that, Finn knows. He's sure of it. Finn doesn't have the first clue of who it'd be for Kylo.

"Who would you die _for_?" Kylo speaks up again. "Who would die for _you_?"

"Not you," Finn answers immediately.

Kylo nods. "Not me. Why would you and why would I when we're nothing but strangers to each other. Enemies."

"And what of Han, huh? What of your father? He wasn't a stranger he was your father," Finn points out, does nothing to mask the disgust and the anger.

Kylo nods again. "I knew- _realized_ he loved me as he fell. He died by my hand, maybe even _for_ me." He shakes his head. "I can't match that dying man with the one from my memories. With the man was afraid _of_ me. Who did nothing, said nothing, when Leia Organa made plans to send me away to Skywalker. Who couldn't even look me in the eye when he visited."

Finn wants to say a lot. _They were there_ , he wants to shout. _You had a family, not a_ squadron. _They wanted you to come home, even after all these years they wanted you_ back.

"Why not before?" Kylo blurts out. He brings up a hand to rub at his head. He sighs.

Finn doesn't have an answer for that, as much as he hates to admit.

He hadn't had it in him to ask, when General Organa told him about Ben Solo. It sounded like nothing but excuses at the time.

 _We failed him_ , the General had said with such heavy regret and all Finn could do then was think, _but he failed you too_.

If he thinks about it now, if he replays it with what he knows now-

If he connects the dots and adds his own, tries to make sense of it all then-

He wants Snoke dead for taking his family and ripping it to pieces across the galaxy..

For the good man who he could have one day called Uncle but never will now, for the good woman he looks up to with all his heart who lost so much already.

For the man who is his father, the legend he's never met or seen or even given much thought to.

For his cousin- the little boy who knew of him before his own father did.

For his mother and himself most of all.

He wants Snoke dead.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *9 months and 2 weeks after the destruction of Starkiller base

Finn hates desert planets. Absolutely abhors them. It doesn’t matter that he’s only been on three such planets in his entire life so far. As far as he’s concerned that is three too many for one lifetime. Worst of it all is that he wouldn’t have had to be in the planet had he just kept his mouth shut instead of offering to accompany a friend.

 

He wonders if it’s a curse, being too kind that is.

 

Poe would disagree, with those big brown eyes of his and that mouth-

 

Finn digresses. There are times to think about his boyfriend ( _boyfriend_!!) and this isn’t one of them.

 

He wishes he wasn’t so disoriented at the moment. Sure, he wasn’t expecting to wake up and be back to 100% capacity but it’s a little ridiculous. As much as he hates remembering his time in the First Order he knows he’s been trained better than this. Plus it’d help if he could find a way to break the shackles around his wrists but every time he opens his eyes the room starts to spin. Along with what little he had for breakfast too. He’s already puked out his lunch.

 

He sighs, leaning back to the wall behind him. A head knocks into his shoulder.

 

“How you holding up, Matty?” he asks, and _Force all mighty_ his poor vocal cords. He could really use some water and some pain killers right about now.

 

Matahar Zelle, one of the Resistance’s top intelligence agents, ex-bounty hunter and self-proclaimed cat burglar, grunts.

 

“Yeah,” Finn says, nodding his head slowly, fighting off nausea. “Me too.”

 

“Sorry about this,” she murmurs into his shoulder, and really it’s a sign of how much desert planets _suck_ that they haven’t even been on it for more than a full day and they both already sound (and feel) like they’re reaching dangerous levels of dehydration. They probably are, all things considered ( _desert planets are shit_ , let it be known that reporters everywhere in the galaxy are free to quote him on that).

 

“Not your fault,” he tells her. “We couldn’t have known these chiseled good looks would have been so recognizable,” he jokes.

 

How could they have known that after months of keeping quiet the First Order would have finally retaliated against Finn, so hard and so suddenly.

 

It makes him glad and annoyed. Glad that General Organa and the Resistance are going to finally be acknowledged for telling the _kriffing_ truth. Annoyed that his own words weren’t good enough, that the only thing the New Republic would be likely to accept would be the First Order’s prize on his head. The enormous amount of credits for one man has to be the last straw for the New Republic, who amasses it’s forces but doesn’t take action, too busy preaching about peace and diplomacy, even after the Hosnian system and everything-

 

“Should’ve given you a helmet anyway, when I noticed the whole bar glancing at you,” Matty points out, sitting straight with a drawn out groan.

 

“How’s you head?” He asks instead. He won’t hide from the First Order, she knows that. The entire Resistance knows that. He’s given enough interviews, made enough holovids, to let the whole galaxy know what he thinks of the First Order, whether the galaxy believes him or not (whether they think he's the real deal or just a lie, an excuse for which to go to war for- and he doesn't think he'll ever stop being angry about those accusations). It’s a giant target on his back and everyone he cares about, but it’s all he has. He won’t hide, he won’t give them the satisfaction their ego is in such need of after his escape, and the escape of the others.

 

The others, he bites back a groan and a curse. His comrades waiting in the Resistance base (those that chose to stay anyway) trying their best to become their own person, trying to do away with years of First Order conditioning. All of them who look at him for help and guidance, and help him in turn more than they could ever know. He needs them as much as they need him ( _he’s not alone, he’s not alone_ ).

  
And if they don’t get out of this alive he’ll fail not only them but the group of Stormtroopers waiting for the Resistance’s help- waiting for _his_ help-

 

“Finn!”

 

He snaps back into reality, Matty’s shackled hands in front of his face ready to snap her fingers at him again.

 

“Back with me?” she asks softly.

 

“Yeah,” he sighs, blinking away the dizziness. “Yeah, I’m good.”

 

“We’re gonna get out of here,” she says and he glances down at her. Her right eye is almost swollen shut from when their captors hit her with the butt of a blaster, nose bloodied from headbutting another just moments before that. She has all sorts of cuts from the fight but her eyes are the same, dark and clear and ready to put up an even bigger fight. Would have probably fought them to the last tooth and nail if their captors hadn’t gotten the better of them both and surrounded them.

 

He’s not fairing any better really. He feels one of his teeth loose after being punched into unconsciousness and the blaster wound on his shoulder continues to sting. He’s genuinely surprised however, that they treated his stomach wound though he knows it’s probably just so that they’re able to hand him over to the First Order as nicely as possible. It’d be a bad idea to give them a corpse, he knows, when what they want is to make an example out of him. They want him to scream.

 

The dead can’t scream.

 

“Yeah,” he repeats.

 

He should say, _it’s not looking good for us_. He should say, _no one knows we’ve been taken let alone where_. He should say, _we need a miracle_.

 

He should because it’s the truth. A fact. Neither of them can change it.

 

“We’re getting out of here alive,” he says instead because they _will_. They have to.

 

If the galaxy won’t throw a second miracle his way, then Finn will just have to make one himself one way or another.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> #Matahar's facecast is Kelly Marie Tran  
> #A lot of fics I read have the New Republic, what's left of it, unite and be ready to fight the First Order but with a war not that far behind them I'd think they wouldn't want to go into another war without trying everything else they possibly could first (negotiation, reparations, treaties, you name it)  
> #If Bloodline is anything to go by then I def. think what's left of it would be too busy trying to _argue_ a course of action before being able to do anything in the first place  
>  #SpacePoliticsAreShit is what I'm saying

**Author's Note:**

> -Summary is a quote by Adrian Body  
> #Started writing this around early Feb when I came across [[this]](http://emperorpalpantene.tumblr.com/post/136942180846/a-rambly-set-of-thoughts-on-why-finn-is-lukes) post so things we've learned from Bloodline and Life Debt shot my fic in the heart when it was in the baby learning to walk stages but fuck it, that's what AUs are for!!!!  
> #No one writes the fics I wanna read so I guess I have to put my mediocrity to work  
> #Tags will be updated per chapter  
> #Constructive criticism is more than welcome  
> #Thank you for reading!


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